one winter i hopped from nola to asheville but overshot and wound up past charlotte, the train stopped under some highway over pass, i think it was 40, and i climbed up after two days only getting off a few times to warm up and do buisness in the pusher, started hitching to aville and this guy picked me up said he'd take me all the way. as we're riding (sometimes i stretch the truth just for kicks) i started talking about how my dad had been killed by a train ect.ect. and he tells me his wife had died of cancer, left him with a couple rugrats and he was trying to sort shit out by taking a drive across the country, he was gonna meet his kids in cali and hopefully have figured out how to deal with the situation properly so his depression wouldnt effect the kids so much. we just started talking about how hard loss is (i talking about my living dead father) and i was thinking the whole time about this good friend who passed and substituting his name for dad. itys really hard to explain, but were up in those sad misty mountains, and somehow we both just kinda brokedown and started weeping, he pulled over on this cliffside overview and got his wifes ashes out of the back (hed been talking about her the whole ride like she was still alive, even actually talking to her, i know it sounds creepy but you just had to be there) and we both stood up on the wall inches from a 200 foot vertical drop still crying, and he said goodbye to his wife, just let her go and watched her ashes drift away. we got back in the car and rode along in silent understanding looking out at the mist and the pines. he took me all the way to asheville and the only thing he said for rest of the ride was how he hadnt been able to really mourn or even feel anything for his wife till that point and he thanked me, when i thought about it i hadnt been able to really mourn the loss of my friend for the years since hed gone and it felt like this weight had been taken off me. we got to aville, wished eachother luck and that was that.